


Your Presence Still Lingers Here

by kjack89



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Paranormal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 23:19:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16417952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89
Summary: “I’m losing my mind,” Enjolras said, staring blankly at the opposite wall as he sat on his couch.“You’re not losing your mind,” Grantaire scoffed, hovering slightly awkwardly a few feet behind him.Hovering rather literally in this case, as his pearlescent feet weren’t quite touching the ground, and when he tried to rest his hands against the back of the couch, they moved through it as if they were made of nothing.





	Your Presence Still Lingers Here

**Author's Note:**

> Did I title this after a lyric from My Immortal?
> 
> You bet your sweet ass I did.
> 
> Usual disclaimer. Please be kind and tip your fanfic writers in the form of comments and/or kudos!

“I’m losing my mind,” Enjolras said, staring blankly at the opposite wall as he sat on his couch.

“You’re not losing your mind,” Grantaire scoffed, hovering slightly awkwardly a few feet behind him.

Hovering rather literally in this case, as his pearlescent feet weren’t quite touching the ground, and when he tried to rest his hands against the back of the couch, they moved through it as if they were made of nothing.

Enjolras barked a short, humorless laugh. “The fact that I can hear you, can _see_ you, would say otherwise,” he said, running a hand across his face. “Even Combeferre thinks I’m crazy.”

He gestured at the door, which Combeferre had just walked through not that long ago after a very unnerving conversation. Grantaire shrugged. “To be fair, Combeferre didn’t say you were crazy,” he offered. “He said he thought you needed sleep. And you do. I know you haven’t been sleeping.”

“I’d say that’s creepy, but since you’re literally haunting me…”

Enjolras trailed off and Grantaire sighed. “I’m not haunting you,” he said quietly.

“You’re dead.”

Grantaire flinched, but Enjolras ignored him. “You died.” Enjolras voice cracked as he said it, and he balled his hands into fists so tightly that his fingernails cut into the palms of his hands. “I watched you die in front of me. And now you’re here, and no one else can see you, or hear you, or—” His voice broke. “So if that’s not haunting me, then what do you call it?”

“I don’t know,” Grantaire said softly. “I don’t have any explanations either.” Enjolras nodded jerkily and stood, and Grantaire half-floated through the couch, worry clear in his expression. “Where are you going?”

“To get some sleep,” Enjolras said numbly. “In hopes that Combeferre was right, and when I wake up—”

Grantaire nodded slowly. “I won’t be here.”

Enjolras paused, a flash of something more heartbreaking than words crossing his face before fading back into his same numb expression. “I want you to be here,” he whispered. “Just not like this.”

He disappeared into his bedroom, Grantaire staring after him, unreadable expression on his translucent face.

* * *

 

Grantaire was still there when he woke up.

Just like he was still there two months later when Enjolras got home from the first Les Amis meeting he’d attended since—

Well.

In awhile.

“What did they say?” Grantaire asked nervously, hovering just inside the doorway as Enjolras shrugged out of his coat. “About me, I mean?”

“They didn’t say anything about you,” Enjolras said shortly, though he paused, one arm still half in its sleeve. “Mainly because I didn’t say anything about you.”

Grantaire stilled. “You didn’t tell them that, uh…”

“That you’re still haunting my apartment?” Enjolras supplied. “No.”

Grantaire nodded slowly, following Enjolras as he made his way into the kitchen, watching as Enjolras pulled a beer out of the fridge. “Why not?” he asked.

Enjolras shrugged as he twisted the cap off the beer bottle and tossed it toward the trash can. “I’m tired of trying to explain it,” he said. “Besides, I’m…” He shrugged again. “I’m not sure it’s anyone else’s business. This is something I think I have to figure out myself.”

But Grantaire, it seemed, had stopped listening, his forehead wrinkling as he watched Enjolras take a swig of beer. “Since when do you drink beer?”

Enjolras glanced at the beer as if he hadn’t even remembered opening it. “It’s leftover from your funeral,” he said. “Or, your wake, I guess. Bahorel insisted on an Irish wake.” He gave Grantaire a small, wan smile. “Said it’s what you would’ve wanted.”

“He was right,” Grantaire said with a weak smile of his own. “And I’m sure I appreciate the thought. But that doesn’t answer my question.”

Enjolras shrugged. “Felt like it might make me more connected to you and that might help me figure out, you know, why.”

He didn’t elaborate further and Grantaire gave him a look. “I might be touched,” he said dryly, “had you at least gone with Bud Heavy rather than Bud Light. It’s practically water, Enj.”

“Sorry to insult your taste in beer,” Enjolras said, taking a swig from the bottle. “I’ll remember that the next time I go to the store to buy more.”

He turned to head into the bedroom and Grantaire floated closer, concern clear in his expression. “Enjolras—”

“What?” Enjolras asked tiredly.

“Why are you doing this?”

Enjolras stilled, not turning back to Grantaire, his shoulders tense. “Do you remember how you died?” he asked.

Grantaire winced and shook his head. “No. I, uh, I think maybe it’s like in the tv show the Good Place, you know? Where you can’t remember your own death if it was, um, traumatic.” He glanced at Enjolras. “And I have a feeling it was traumatic.”

“That’s an understatement,” Enjolras muttered, taking a long swig from the beer bottle, and other different circumstances, Grantaire might’ve made a comment about the way the pale column of his throat moved as he swallowed.

It spoke volumes that he remained silent.

“You were shot,” Enjolras said, his voice hoarse. “You bled out in front of me. It was too quick for any help to get there.”

He said the facts numbly, but Grantaire’s expression darkened. “I’m sorry,” he said, and now Enjolras did turn to look at him.

“Why are you sorry?” he asked roughly. “The bullet was meant for me. You saved my life.” He huffed a laugh, though there was no humor in it. “You died because of me. And maybe — maybe that’s why you’re still — why you—”

He couldn’t seem to finish it, but Grantaire shook his head anyway. “It’s not,” he told Enjolras. “That’s not why—”

Enjolras cut him off. “So anyway,” he said loudly, “it should’ve been me who died. And this way—” He raised his beer bottle in a mocking salute. “It’s almost like you’re back.”

“Enj—” Grantaire started, his voice pained, but Enjolras ignored him, heading into the bedroom and closing the door after him.

* * *

 

“Enjolras…”

Enjolras looked up, red-eyed, clutching a bottle of whiskey in one fist. “Grantaire,” he said, a little too loudly. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“This is your apartment,” Grantaire reminded him, reaching out as if to take the bottle from his hand, though his hands fell back to his side when he remembered he couldn’t. “I can’t go anywhere else.”

Enjolras snorted. “Yeah, well, whose fault is that,” he muttered.

“Enjolras, please,” Grantaire said, following Enjolras as he drifted through his apartment like more of a ghost than Grantaire himself was. “This isn’t like you.”

“No, but it’s like _you_ ,” Enjolras said, collapsing against the couch. “And that’s the whole point.”

Grantaire bit his lip, looking down at Enjolras, frustration and something like fear mingling in his expression. “You’re not being haunted by Grantaire.”

Enjolras paused, bottle halfway to his lips. “What?” he said.

“You might be haunted by something,” Grantaire told him with a sigh, trying to perch on the arm of the sofa, “but it — but _I’m_ — not Grantaire.”

Enjolras stared at him. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “Of course you’re—”

“I’m you,” Grantaire said simply. “Or more accurately, I’m the part of you that loved Grantaire and never got to tell him.”

Enjolras’s mouth snapped closed and he swallowed, hard, the bottle falling from his hand and landing on the floor with a _clunk_. “What does that mean?” he asked softly.

Grantaire — or the empty shape of him, it seemed — sighed. “It means that when Grantaire died, a part of you died with him,” he said quietly. “The part that loved him, that wanted to build a future with him. The part of you that was afraid to take that next step, even though you knew he loved you.” He shrugged. “And I’m that part of you.”

For the first time in months, tears pricked at the corners of Enjolras’s eyes. “Then how do I get rid of you?”

“By letting him go. By letting that future go.”

Enjolras jerked back, eyes widening. “You want me to forget him?” he spat.

“I don’t think you could if you tried,” Grantaire said honestly. “But there’s a big difference between forgetting and letting go. And you have to keep living, Enjolras. You have to let the part of you that died that day go so that the rest of you can still live. He would want you to — more than anything, it’s what he would want. It’s why he died, so that you could live.” Enjolras shook his head silently, not bothering to stem the tears as they fell. “You have a future you still have to build for yourself, you just — you have to learn to do it without him.”

“What if I don’t know how to do that?” Enjolras whispered.

Grantaire shrugged, somewhat helplessly. “Then you learn. Because otherwise—”

“You’re the only part of him that I have left,” Enjolras told him, his voice raw, pained. “I don’t know if I can let him go.”

“I’m not,” Grantaire said softly. “I’m not all you left. You have your memories, and you still have your love for him. That won’t be lost, even when you let that part of yourself go. And besides, when you let this part of yourself go…” He trailed off, reaching out to rest his transparent hand on top of Enjolras’s, or as close as he could manage. “When you let me go, I’ll find him, wherever he is. He’s waiting for you, and every part of your soul will find his.”

Enjolras closed his eyes. “I love you,” he whispered. “I should’ve told him that when—”

“I know,” Grantaire said.

Enjolras shook his head. “God, he’d think I’m pathetic,” he huffed, drawing a shaky hand across his face.

“He wouldn’t,” Grantaire assured him. “But it wouldn’t hurt to try to be the man he’d expect you to be, even without him.”

Enjolras snorted. “I don’t think even I could live up to the mental image Grantaire had of me,” he muttered.

Grantaire half-smiled. “Luckily for you, I don’t think you ever needed to try,” he said softly.

Though Enjolras managed a small half-smile, it quickly faded, and he sighed heavily. “So I have to let you — let him — go,” he said softly. “And then you’ll just…disappear.”

“Yeah,” Grantaire said, nodding, “but it’ll be ok.”

“How do you know?” Enjolras asked.

Grantaire shrugged. “Because I’ll be with him. And because when you finally manage it, it means you’ll be ok.”

“Promise?” Enjolras asked, somewhat wryly.

“Pretty sure Grantaire would say that the only certainty is his full glass,” Grantaire said mildly. “So in this case, you’ll have to draw on your own faith.”

“I think I still remember how to do that,” Enjolras said with a slight smile. He paused, staring blankly at the opposite wall before offering, “Thanks.”

Grantaire nodded before telling him quietly, “Grantaire loved you. Loves you. Still. Always.”

“I know,” Enjolras whispered.

The ghostly form of Grantaire straightened, already looking slightly paler, slightly more faded. “Remember that, and you’ll be ok,” he told Enjolras.

“I will,” Enjolras promised, with a hint of his old fervor. “I will.”


End file.
